


you can't deny you're making no change

by lalejandra



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco, The Like (Band)
Genre: Bands, Best Friends, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:22:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/pseuds/lalejandra
Summary: Ryan and Z were never best friends, except for six months. Z thinks they should try again.
Relationships: Z Berg & Ryan Ross
Kudos: 3





	you can't deny you're making no change

**Author's Note:**

> For the BFF Fest

Ryan deletes four messages from Z without even listening to them. The fifth message starts with a familiar-sounding rhythm but Ryan can't place it because it's on a kazoo. Fucking Z. She knows him too well, he can't ever pass up a kazoo.

He deletes this message halfway through when he places the song -- fuck that, he's not listening to goddamn Panic at the Disco on his voicemail.

Message number six comes later that night but he's out with Dan and Ry and doesn't listen to it until the morning, hung over from bad sleep and too-loud music, trying to simultaneously make coffee and feed the cat. (It doesn't work; he ends up with cat food in the coffee filter again.)

Message number seven is just a bell ringing. It sounds exactly like his doorbell, which is weird. It stops being weird when he gets home and Z is sitting on his doorstep, stretched out and squinting in the sun. It's been three years since he's seen her -- her thirtieth birthday party, a bunch of people Ryan hadn't known at all singing, "Happy birthday, dear Lizzie!" like that was her name, like it was hilarious -- and she has a tan. She has a tan and she's wearing jeans and a t-shirt and her hair is back to a soft brown, pulled back into a ponytail. She has a pair of sunglasses on top of her head, and she's not wearing any makeup.

Except for how beautiful she is, she could just be any thirty-something. She kind of looks like a schoolteacher, Ryan thinks.

"You kind of look like a schoolteacher," he says.

"I've been teaching guitar at the Y by my house to six to nine-year-old girls. Does that count?"

He hands her the two grocery bags to hold while he pulls out his keys. "I guess. You're really working at the Y?"

"I got bored and wanted to remind myself why I'm never having kids. Seven-year-old girls are really good for that." She leans against the side of his house and watches him fumble with his keys. He's lived here for nine years and still can't ever get the lock undone on the first try. "You know you left the door unlocked when you left, right?"

He looks down at the key in his hand that he'd just used to unlock the door, and then over to her.

"I locked it when I closed it, after I sent you that voicemail of your doorbell ringing. Next time you should be more careful. I might steal your cat."

She smiles at him, that wide, familiar, comforting smile, and he smiles back automatically, then scowls. Her smile just gets wider. Captain Knots, that traitor, winds around her legs, talking to her, and as soon as Ryan takes the bags back, she picks him up and starts crooning.

"You didn't return my calls," she finally says, following Ryan into the kitchen. "I almost thought maybe you didn't want to talk to me."

"I almost thought maybe I didn't," he allows.

"Sometimes I talk to you at night when I can't sleep," she says, and takes off a messenger bag he hadn't even noticed her carrying. She's still got Captain Knots in her other arm, and he's licking her skin, because he's a lothario.

Ryan pulls out his phone and snaps a picture, a close-up of kitty tongue, posts it to Twitter with no caption, then goes back to putting away his hemp milk and cat food and the frozen enchiladas that had looked really appetizing in the grocery store but now kind of turn his stomach a little. Or maybe that's Z standing in his kitchen, staring at him like they still know each other and never broke each other's hearts by being callous assholes and pretending they didn't give a shit.

He'd always given a shit. Maybe he should tell her that. He's working on talking about his feelings. It's a lot harder when he has to say them to someone's face. Out loud. Own them. At least with songs, he can construct stories for them and give them meaning. Talking to a person, they're just... they're just feelings. They don't have meaning or stories and they don't make sense and they just hurt most of the time. He's also working on making them hurt less, and not using them to hurt people.

Ryan knows he can do that with Z. He knows he can.

"I miss you sometimes too," he says grudgingly. That didn't hurt. Him or her. He leans against the kitchen counter and folds his arms across his chest.

"This is for you." She pulls a notebook out of her bag and puts it down on the counter next to him. "But I'll warn you -- if you open it, you're agreeing to some specific terms."

"What are the terms?" It's a composition notebook, with doodles on the page edges and stickers on the front. Almost all the doodles are spirals of some kind. One is a triangle-shaped spiral.

"You open that, we're in a band. We tour on a bus, not in a van. We bring your cat and mine. We never cover a song originally done or ever covered by any of our other bands. And you're my best friend again."

"I was never your best friend."

"You were for, like, six months."

"Those six months sucked."

"We can do it this time without drugs."

"I don't know..." Ryan hesitates, looks back to the notebook. "You know how long it's been since I've written a song?"

"A few days?" When he looks at her, she's grinning. "I know you've been selling your stuff."

"I mean a real song."

"You can write songs for me to sing. They don't have to be real."

"I don't know if I can get up on a stage again, Z." That wipes the grin off her face, and he feels more like a jackass than usual. He didn't say it to hurt her, wasn't trying to use his feelings to hurt her, but he did it anyway.

But she doesn't leave or yell.

"Me either," she says softly. "We can try together. I keep thinking about it. You and me on a stage together, Ryan. Come on."

He drags in a long breath and unfolds his arms, reaches out for the notebook. "Best friends again?" he asks, tracing the triangle spiral.

"Sober best friends."

"I really have missed you a lot."

"Me too." She puts her hand over his on the notebook, and pulls him into a hug. She smells totally different. He knows he must too. He holds her tight and takes a deep breath. This is the easiest new start he's ever made.


End file.
